This is a
brief history of the Moors in Iberia. The Islamic world incorporated Hispania after Romans, Carthaginians, and Visigoths had sequentially settled the area. Muslims and Berbers from the Morocco area
(Maghrib) crossed the Straits of Gibraltar to the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula
about 600 AD. They found Old Roman aqueducts, building and road foundations and
some buildings left by the Visigoths.
Life was good so they settled. In 755 AD, an Umayyad prince, Abd
al-Rahman from Syria, whose mother was a Berber, escaped an inter-Arab massacre
by the Abbasid and headed west across Northern Africa and across
Gibraltar. He picked up followers along
the way to help him negotiate a takeover in Córdoba. He became the founder of a
Muslim dynasty in Iberia that lasted about 3 centuries. He established many
good things such as libraries; translations of Greek texts into Arab and
Hebrew; and religious freedom for Christians, Hebrews, and Muslims. He built
mosques and brought vegetation from his homeland like cedars and palms.
The Abbasids
that murdered his family to take over lead for all Muslims moved the center
from Damascus to Bagdad putting some space between the Moors and remaining Muslims.
In succeeding centuries other Muslim factions that were more and more
fundamentalists invaded from Northern Africa.
The Almoravids and Almohads sought payment from people of the other
faiths. Eventually, the Catholics from northern Spain added these Muslims to
the Crusade.
Al-Andalus
included cities as Seville, Toledo, Córdoba, Malaga, Valencia, and Granada. One
by one they were taken in battle during the reconquest by kings of Castile,
Leon, and Aragon until finally, only Granada was still under Moorish rule in
their great fortress Alhambra. It was built by the Nasrids during the 13-14
centuries. Frequently the Moors would make a treaty with other folks to help
them fight off some current foe. And
frequently the allied army would decide to take their friend's land as
well. This happened with other Muslim
factions and with catholic rulers. The
last sour deal was with King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile
in 1492. Without any fighting, Boabdil, the last Nasrid sultan, handed the keys
of Alhambra over to the Catholic Monarchs on the condition that Muslims would
have freedom to worship and live in Andalusia. After agreeing and taking over
the palaces in Alhambra, they changed their mind and required conversion or
exile. They also exiled all the Jews who
would not convert. The Inquisition was
started to discover which of the converted Moors and Jews were really still
practicing their faith. The scientific and philosophical books in the Moorish
libraries were burnt and the Arab language and dress were banned.
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The Capitulation of Granada, Francisco Pradilla Ortiz
(1848-1921)
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The
farewells of King Boabdil at Granada, Alfred Dehodencq (1822-1882). The spot
from which Muhammad XII looked for the last time on Granada is known as “the
Moor’s last sigh”.
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